Daing Imrad

COMMON ERRORS COMMITTED BY GRADE 11… 1
ABSTRACT
This study used a one-group quasi experimental method and a descriptive-comparative as the
research design. The focus of the study is to identify and analyse the common errors committed
by the Grade 11 of Humanities and Social Sciences (HUMSS) students from a public school in
Quezon City. The gathered data were taken from the written compositions of 176 students. Data
were from two different phases called: initial-writing assessment with a title, “My Journey as
HUMSS Student” and final-writing assessment with a title of, “How I Met My Best Friend”.
Between the two writing tasks, an intervention was given to the participants in three (3) sessions
of lesson on the dominant errors. Results showed that the highest number of students committed
errors in the initial-writing assessment were the incorrect use of punctuations 128, placed in rank
1 and capitalization 116, placed in rank 2, spelling 64, placed in rank 3, subject-verb agreement
59, placed in rank 4, and dangling modifiers 55, placed in rank 5. Other errors were verb tense
48, placed in rank 6, misplaced modifiers 29, placed in rank 7, preposition 17, placed in rank 8,
and parallelism 15, placed in rank 9. Consequently, after the intervention/treatment was given to
the students, the number of errors found in the final-writing assessment were reduced except in
the use of verb tense. Furthermore, from the four types of Surface Strategy of Taxonomy (SST),
the category of Misformation 712, found to have the highest number of frequency of errors,
followed by the Omission 453, Addition 53, and Misordering 50 from the initial-writing
assessment of the students. Though the number of frequency of errors was reduced in the final-
writing assessment, the category of Misformation 689, remained to have the highest number of
errors, followed by Omission 235, then Misordering 27, and lastly, the category of Addition has
obtained 24 errors. Subsequently, a significant difference occurred after the intervention was
given which interpreted that the intervention was able to address the issue in various types of
errors, except to the misplaced and dangling modifiers.
OUR LADY OF FATIMA UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL

1.0 Introduction
Few years ago, the Philippines used to have the biggest competitive advantage in the
global job market due to the workers’ proficiency in the English language. However, the
rising competition from other countries and the decreasing mastery of the English language by
our students abruptly caused a warning situation.
Countries that were once inferior in English proficiency, as according to the South
China Morning Post (2018, November 2), have now equalled or even surpassed the
Philippines in most aspects of the matter. The ability of the Filipinos in using the English
language fluently has clearly weakened. The scores of English language proficiency based
from the recent new report by Rex Wallen Tan, a General Manager of Hopkins International
Partners, Inc., from an article of The Manila Times, February 21, 2018, showed a decline in
the country’s English language proficiency.
The efficacy of individual in interacting with others lies on the knowledge and skills
he has. It was noticeable that some Filipino students have difficulty in expressing themselves;
most of the time, they commit errors in their spoken and written communication; making it
difficult for them to communicate well. Furthermore, the students’ capabilities in expressing
ideas depend on their acquired comprehension. A German philosopher, also the first modern
European linguist, Wilhelm von Humboldt (1820) once said that “human language is a rule-
governed system rather than a collection of words and phrases with meanings.” The ‘rule-
governed system’ in the language is about grammar, and it should follow its rules on how
words relate to one another. Without the rules of grammar, people would not be able to
communicate and understand with each other.
Therefore, the common grammatical errors that the students encountered must be
corrected. Direct instructions may not be the sole solution to these errors, neither follow up
exercises and activities, because if so, how come they still commit the same errors despite the
same lessons were taught to them, in their earlier school years? The concern here is not about
the teachers, or the content of the curriculum, but the process of transferring that knowledge,
and articulating to the students the uses of what they have acquired, particularly, the
application of the second language in their everyday lives.
This study was limited to the identification of the errors committed by the students in
the subject-verb agreement, verb tenses, prepositions, spelling, punctuation marks, misplaced,
dangling, and parallelism, and capitalization. Other errors in mechanics, usage, forms and
writing process, and other part of speech were not included in the composition analysis

because the study focuses only on the common errors committed from the written essays of the
participants.
Only the Grade 11 students of Humanities and Social Sciences (HUMSS) strand from
a public high school in Quezon City of school year 2018-2019 were identified as the
participants of the study because the researcher, herself, is their subject-teacher in the Reading
and Writing. In other words, the researcher has a direct access to the important source of data
needed. There are six (6) class-sections of Grade 11 Humanities and Social Sciences
(HUMSS) strand with a with a population of 250 (n=250).
It was in this light that the researcher chose to concentrate on Grade 11 Senior High
School (SHS) of Humanities and Social Sciences (HUMSS) students’ common errors. As
such, the findings of this study, specifically will benefit the following: english teachers,
students, school administrators and researchers. The result of this study was somehow, useful
for English-teachers, as they instantly recognize the students’ difficulties in constructing or
composing sentences in English; the errors will be given more attention. The results of the
study serve as an evaluation as to whether they are successful or not in the English language
teaching process. For the students, they will be more aware of the errors. The study reveals
which part in grammar they are weak. With the help of strategic intervention material,
students’ grammatical errors are expected to reduce. While the school administrators will
benefit from the study since the results would challenge them to review their school’s program
such as Creative Writing, Oral Communication, Reading & Writing, Practical Research 1, and
other English language-related subjects. Moreover, the research will inspire future researchers
to conduct further studies about common errors using other variables to enhance the English
proficiency of the students.
2.0 Background
2.1 Theoretical Framework
This study is anchored on Stephen Pit Corder’s (1960) theory of Error Analysis, which
is a branch of applied linguistics. According to Corder (1981) as cited in Mohammed &
Abdalhussein (2015), Error analysis has two significant functions: the theoretical function and
the practical function. Describing the learner’s knowledge on the target language is called,
Theoretical function. It helps the researcher identify the psychological processes and its
nature, as well as the relation between the knowledge and the teaching that learners have
obtained. Whereas, Practical function provides knowledge for remedial to seize the

discrepancy between the knowledge of the leaners and the demands of the situation. Thus, the
researcher believed that Corder’s Error Analysis is profound and an effective approach.
In the same manner, the study employed Dulay, Burt, & Krashen (1982)
categorization of errors such as omission, addition, misordering, and misformation. For these
reasons, this study attempted to focus on the errors particularly the subject-verb agreement,
verb tenses, preposition, punctuations, spelling, together with faulty sentence word order
committed by the Grade 11 Humanities and Social Sciences (HUMSS) students.
2.2 Literature Review

This chapter presented a review of literature and studies concerning the Error Analysis,
concept of Error, and its literature, concept of grammar, importance of writing, and the
conceptual framework of the study.
2.2.1 Importance of writing

Writing is a form of communication that allows an individual to express one’s feelings
and brilliant ideas on paper or in any technical tool. It organizes these knowledge and beliefs
into convincing arguments in order to convey meaning through well-constructed text. Writing,
according to Chuenchaichon (2014), was claimed by a number of scholars/linguists to be one of
the most important skills in learning English. Writing, in its most advanced form, expressions
of ideas are vivid like a work of art.
Hence, worthy ideas are intended to be shared usually in the form of writing. It is futile
for good ideas to be confined in one’s head. Imagine if Bill Gates kept within himself the idea
of personal computers, most likely, this generation would still be using punch cards and
mainframes. If Aesop had kept his stories, there would be no fables. If authors did not write,
there would be lesser chances to education. If nobody expressed himself, humanity would not
accomplish its goal.
In her recent study, Lestari (2018), initiated a new learning method. Its goal is to
increase the interest in writing a narrative text of her students through Field Trip. The students
were instructed to write about their experiences after they went to a field trip. Findings showed
that field trip method improved the students writing in the narrative form.
A person who is skillful in writing in English has an edge nowadays. According to
Chen (2007), as cited in Promsupa, et al. (2017), writing becomes the tool of international
linguists who are apt to publish more articles and journals online. Moreover, international

students are pursuing their degrees in the English speaking countries; it opens job opportunities
to most companies, domestically and internationally.
2.2.2 Concept of Grammar

The main purpose of arranging the words is for people to understand one another in
order to exchange information from one person or point to another. The word grammar has
several meanings, and was attempted to explain by many language experts. Merriam-Webster
Dictionary defines grammar as the “study of the classes of words, their inflections, and their
functions, and relations in the sentence.” Furthermore, grammar shares a significant role in
the composition and interpretation of texts, as well as contributes to discourse coherence and
cohesion. Grammar, therefore, serves its purpose if it is used for communication. To transmit
messages effectively towards the receiver, students need to write with clarity. It means that
appropriate words and correct grammar rules should be used when one is communicating.
“The methods in teaching grammar has been changing in the past few decades”, says
Esfandiari & Rath (2014). The issue made them to conduct a quasi-experimental study that
focused on the teaching of Past Perfect tense, a challenging area to master by the non-native
English speakers. The study compared the effectiveness of two approaches – inductive
techniques, and the combination of inductive and deductive techniques. The findings appeared
that the combination of inductive-deductive grammar approach was more efficient, than the
inductive approach alone.
In order to determine how students understand grammar rules and how they perceive
grammar as essentials in the language teaching and learning was the focus of the study
conducted by Saaristo (2015). He developed a set of survey-questionnaire that collects
information from students as his respondents. The findings, according to him, would help the
teachers to adjust the way the language is being taught inside the classroom. Consequently,
majority of the students positively thought that grammar was considered to be a valuable asset
in the language learning.
Understanding the most common errors can help one improve English language skill.
An example of this is Zabala’s (2014) research, wherein, she collected 140 written essays of
students in the tertiary level. She used, however, Pit Corder’s Error Analysis in processing the
grammar errors committed by her students. The dominant errors, according to findings were
tenses, SVA, and word order. Moreover, the causes of these errors were, “lack of exposure to
an English speaking environment” as ranked 1, then followed by “mother tongue

interference”, then next was, “failure to understand the rules in grammar”, and lastly, “weak
foundation in English writing”.
Scholarly work written in English in a feebly manner produces negative
consequences. In his study, Onwuegbuzie (2017) identified and analyzed the grammatical
errors committed by writers from the 117 manuscripts submitted to the journal Research in the
Schools over a 6-year period. These identified grammatical errors, as well as the frequent
improper use of APA (American Psychological Association) were the primary reasons as to
why the authors’ manuscripts were significantly rejected for publication. Moreover, the
researcher found 35 of the most common errors in grammar. They were the use of colloquial
words/phrases (e.g., “the author did a good job”) a 76.1%, represented the most common
errors. Consequently, the researcher recommended that the authors should exercise their
writing prowess with discipline, as well as to give more attention on their most common errors
in grammar.
2.2.3 The Error Analysis

Error analysis is a branch of applied linguistics in the 1960s by Stephen Pit Corder in
1960. According to Ellis and Barkhuizen (2005) as cited in Namkaew (2015), Error Analysis
consists of a set of procedures for identifying, describing and explaining learner errors. Thus,
Namkaew (2015), enumerated numerous definitions of error analysis defined by several
researchers in her study, and she eventually described EA as a useful tool for discovering,
explaining, and correcting the errors developmentally, which benefits both learners and
teachers.
An example of Error Analysis was applied in a study conducted by Aperocho (2017).
He identified the common errors committed by fifty (50) B.S. Criminology students from a
university in Davao City. The researcher, used Pit Corder’s Error Analysis procedure in
finding the errors committed by the participants’ first, second, and third written compositions.
Consistent errors were compared and categorized based on Changquoy’s (2001) Classification
of Writing Errors. According to findings, the most common errors were on the grammatical
aspect. Errors found were improper use of verb tense, subject-verb agreement, the use of
auxilliary and linking verbs. Other errors found were from the mechanical aspect such as the
spelling and incorrect use of punctuations. Nevertheless, the researcher appreciated the
motivation expressed by his respondents to master the language, despite learning English was
quite a challenge for them.

Error Analysis, Ellis (1994) as cited in Al-Khresheh (2016), illustrates the four
consecutive stages. These stages are: (1) "collection of a sample of learner language, (2)
identification of errors, (3) description of errors, and (4) explanation of errors". Moreover,
Corder (1981) discussed the advantages of Error Analysis for learners, teachers and
researchers. For learners, it is the learning instruments of language learning. For teachers, it
determines what types of errors learners make, what skills learners have achieved and what
remains for them to learn. Also, for researchers, errors provide evidence of how learners
acquire the language, and what strategies they employ to achieve the learning goal.
In Ashgar’s blogsite (May 2014), “Masters in English Language and Literature”, he
amplified the importance of Error Analysis. According to him, Error Analysis can be carried
out in order to: 1) determine strategies which learners use in the language learning, 2) identify
the source of learners’ errors, and 3) obtain information on common difficulties in language
learning, as an aid to teaching or in the preparation of teaching materials.
According to Mahmoodzadeh (2012) as cited in Al-Khresheh (2016), Error Analysis
is a procedure used to identify, categorize, and explain the errors committed by foreign
language learners. It is considered as the most appropriate tool for analyzing learners' errors
because “it plays a fundamental role in investigating, analyzing, and categorizing errors made
by L2 learners.” Error Analysis (EA) is about an analysis of errors made by L2 learners. It is
done by comparing the learners’ acquired first language with the target language norms and
explaining the identified errors.
In categorizing errors, Surface Strategy Taxonomy (SST) is one of the linguistics
categories that is widely used. Surface Strategy Taxonomy (SST) was developed by Dulay,
Burt, & Krashen (1982), as cited in Agustina, V. & Junining, E. (2015). According to Dulay,
et al. (1982), second language learners produce errors based on the surface structures more
than their own structure. This taxonomy analyzes the language produced by the learners, as it
informs the researchers that there is a reason the errors are produced, not because of their
carelessness, clumsiness or unwillingness to write. Surface Strategy Taxonomy has four
different types. They are: 1) omission, 2) addition, 3) misformation, and 4) misordering.
The error of Omission, which is “characterized by the absence of an item that must
appear in a well-formed utterance”. An example of this is, “Ruby is gentle person.” The
article “a” is missing in the sentence. Thus, it should be “Ruby is a gentle person.” Another
category is the error of Addition, that characterized by the presence of an item which should
not appear in a well-formed utterance. An example of this is, “The fishes does not live in the
water.” The “es” was added, where it should be “The fish doesn’t live in the water.” The

third category is the error of Misformation that uses wrong form of the morphemes or
structure. It occurs when the learner supplies something although it is incorrect. An example
of this is the word, ‘putted’ instead of ‘put’. Then finally, the error of Misordering, that
characterized by the incorrect placement of a morpheme or group of morphemes in an
utterance. It occurs systematically for both L1 and L2 learners. An example of this is, “I
know what is that.” There is misordering on the placement of word/s, where should be “I
know what that is.”
2.2.4 Concept of Errors

There have been several definitions related to errors. Cambridge Dictionary defines
error as “a mistake, especially one that can cause problems”. Behaviorism was the prevalent
language-learning theory in the early 1960, and grammar errors committed by the students
were so unthinkable. According to Farrokh (2011), as cited in Sriwantaneeyakul, S. (2018),
undeniably, people tend to produce incorrect language words whether in native language or in
a non-native language. Furthermore, people who are learning foreign languages can also
produce systematic errors. Nevertheless, these errors are signs of progress; the chance to
identify the type of difficulties of the learners are available for the teachers, so that they can
determine the appropriate methods to use in language teaching.
Errors are commonly made by human in the process of learning a language, especially
a foreign language. It happens when learners try to say or write something that is beyond their
current level of language processing. In this case, learners are unable to correct themselves
because they are unaware of their inaccuracies.
A learner's errors provide evidence on the system of the language that he is using.
According to Krisnawati (2013), cited in Gayo and Widodo (2018), errors reflect gaps in a
learner’s knowledge; they occur because the learner does not know what is correct. Errors,
however, can be essential to the educators, because they would use it as a systematic analysis,
and determine how far towards the goal the learner has progressed. Errors may also provide
the researchers with evidence of how language is learned or acquired. Lastly, errors are vital
to the learners, because they can utilize the making of errors as a device in order to learn.
Sermsook, et al., (2017) cited Richards’ (1974) two major sources of errors as the
interlingual errors and intralingual errors. According to Richards (1974), interlingual errors are
errors caused by the learners who incorrectly use the rules of their first language/mother
tongue that consequently produces incorrect sentences of the target language. On the other
hand, intralingual errors are caused by the learners during his/her language learning process.

2.2.5 Error and Mistake

In his study, Mwaka (2016) cited Norrish’s (1983) statement that there is a clear
distinction between errors and mistakes. According to Norrish (1983), errors are – systematic
deviation when a learner has not learned something and consistently gets it wrong. He also
added that when a learner of English as a second or foreign language makes an error
systematically, it is because he/she has not learned the correct form. Thus, errors usually are
found in second or foreign language learning.
Conversely, mistakes are inconsistent deviation. For example, a learner who
inconsistently use one form at times, and another form oftentimes, is referred to inconsistent
deviation, thus, it is called a mistake. This occurred despite the learner has been taught the
correct form. Mistakes, therefore, reflect lapses intermittently in performance because the
learner is unable to perform what she knows.
On the other hand, Botley (2015) described the irreconcilable difference between
errors and mistakes, and to arrive at a clearer understanding from an observed and practical
viewpoint. He stated that errors are usually describe to be a deviation from the rules of the
target language systematically, because the learner simply does not know the rule (e.g.
subject-verb agreement). Mistakes, on the other hand, are unintentional or accidental slips
caused by a simple laziness or forgetting. Botley (2015), however, argues that it is difficult to
distinguish or to spot if an error or mistake has been produced by the learner. Furthermore,
according to him, “many existing objective tests of ‘errorness’ or ‘mistakeness’ are not
reliable.” Instead, the researcher proposed to use the term “interlanguage”, rather than the
term ‘errors’ or ‘mistakes’.
2.2.6 Common Errors

Most Filipinos tend to mix up the use of singular and plural verbs with singular and
plural subjects. Agreement is the correct relationship between a subject and its verb.
Therefore, singular subjects need singular vers, while plural subjects require plural verbs.
This rule is commonly applied in simple tense only, as there are 16 or more rules need to
observe in constructing sentences.
A study in the Philippines was conducted by Ulla (2014) to some English-major
students because the researcher was prompted on the errors in their composition writing. He
used descriptive method in his research, with 30 college students as the respondents. They
were asked to write an essay with a suggested topic. The researcher identified, tabulated, and

analyzed the grammar errors with the use of Corder’s (1967) Error Analysis procedure. Major
findings were the errors committed on SVA which ranked third with 11.97%, making
Punctuation marks topped the most frequent errors made at 16.30%. Because of the findings
in the study, an Intensive Summer Course on Grammar and Composition was suggested to
implement as a response to address the English language problem particularly to the English–
major students. These students were required to complete a 120-hour attendance, and a
minimum grade of 2.0 to qualify in the admission, and retention in the BSE (Bachelor in
Secondary Education) and AB (Bachelor of Arts) English programs.
In their study, Sermsook et al., (2017) found various types of grammatical errors from
the English-written compositions of Thai EFL students. Data were taken from 104 pieces of
written compositions of 26 students taking up English-major. The content of the papers were
analyzed, as well as the source of the errors was determined. Results showed that subject-verb
agreement (SVA) errors ranked third with 11.82%, while the top most committed errors was
also the punctuation marks with 14.19%. Furthermore, the foremost sources of errors were
found to be the inadequate knowledge in the rules of grammar, followed by the limited
knowledge in vocabulary, and the inattentiveness of the students. The researcher
recommended that the English Grammar and Vocabulary course should be taught to the Thai
students.
Another most frequent grammatical errors committed are verb tenses. In the study
conducted by Malimas & Samson (2017), 32 manuscripts were collected and analyzed. The
data gathered from the fourth-year college students were drafts of their thesis proposals.
According to the results, the most grammatical errors committed were pronoun-antecedent,
marking the highest number of errors, followed by the verb tenses which ranked second, and
SVA ranked the third spot. Based from the findings, however, the need to attend a writing
refresher program was recommended to the future students of fourth year level. The
recommendation will prepare the students for their thesis proposal writing, and to avoid
similar grammar problems.
A case study was conducted by Atmaca (2016) to 32 elementary level students, where
he gave series of English lessons for three months. The researcher gave lessons on
vocabulary, grammatical rules and structures, as well as written assignments to the students.
In the final examination, students were asked to choose one topic from the three different
topics given, and to write the chosen topic in the form of a paragraph. After finding the errors,
and interview was conducted, asking the respondents on how they felt about their written
assignments. The result of the findings emerged ten types of errors from the gathered data.

They were prepositions, articles, verbs, sentence structure, punctuations, pluralism, gerunds,
possessive pronoun, and choice of word. In the case of verb tenses, it ranked second to the
lowest with 11.11% of errors. Based from the result, the researcher suggested the teachers to
create for their learners a curative feedback. In this manner, students will be able to monitor
their progress and give more attention on the least mastered skill.
Prepositions can affect the entire meaning of a sentence if not properly used in
constructing a sentence. In the research conducted by Corral (2017), where Facebook posts
and comments made by the selected Grade 8 Filipino students were analyzed. Findings
revealed that the top most errors was the verb tenses, then, next in rank were the improper use
of subject-verb agreement and prepositions accordingly. Based from the error analysis, the
findings simply interpreted that the students, however, lack the mastery in this category of
errors, despite the learners were taught on the rules of grammar plenty of times.
English language is full of silent letters and unexpected sounds. So, with the intention
to remember English words, most students would often simply memorize how words are
spelled in order to recognize its written form. This is also similar in the theory of Brown
(2002), as he stated that committed errors in spelling made by students were caused by lack of
knowledge to discern the difference between the sound of a certain word and how that word
should be spelled correctly. It is not a hindrance if an incorrect spelling is found in a message,
however, it may give a negative impression by the reader, especially when reading or taking a
written examination. Brown (2002) suggests that, one should choose his/her specific kind of
English to use, whether it’s American English or British English as his/her model for spelling.
So, in this case, the Philippine education chose the standard American English.
In her study, Abroguena (2016), determines the effect of SMS (Short Message
Service) on the language competence of public high school students in Misamis Oriental.
Since Philippines has been tagged as the “texting capital of the world”, the researcher assessed
the students’ grammar, vocabulary, and spelling by means of composition writing. The results
of the test were interpreted as “poor” with the score of 38.33% in the category of spelling
proficiency.
Punctuation is an essential part of language. It provides sensible meanings of a
statement. Numerous students commit errors in using punctuation marks which signals their
deficiency in the essay-writing. In his study, Awad (2012), cited Lukeman’s (2006)
description on punctuation marks.

“They (punctuation marks) are little things, but they are as essential to good
composition as nails are to a carpenter. Without punctuation marks, many sentences
are mere jumbles of words.”
According to the study of Salamin, et al. (2016), the most dominant errors in the
punctuation marks made by 157 students from university, who took English as foreign
language, were comma, semi-colon, period, quotation, and hyphen accordingly. Moreover,
the incorrect use of capitalization ranked the most occurrence of errors in the study. The
researcher gathered the data from 157 university students’ tests. Based from the findings, the
researcher recommended that teachers should give priority and importance of teaching the
proper use of punctuation marks in preparation for the students’ written and oral
communication courses. Furthermore, teachers were advised to be mindful of the interference
between native tongue and the language target, specifically the use of punctuation system that
differs from the use of English counterpart.
In the study conducted by Catabay (2016), students were instructed to watch and listen
an audio-visual device titled “Rabbit and Turtle Story (the amazing version). Afterwards, the
students were instructed to write not in a paragraph form, but in many lines of sentences as
much as they can within the period of thirty minutes in order to test their writing skills, and
determine if errors will occur in the written task. The researcher categorized the errors
committed from the written task made by the respondents. The categories were the
mechanical, grammatical, and sentence structural errors. From the gathered data, findings
exposed the most committed errors were in the mechanical category of which punctuation
marks were often misused with errors of 83.9%, followed by the incorrect use of tenses of
verb for the grammatical category, and sentence fragments in the structural category
accordingly. Based from the findings, although the students were already in the second year
level in college, yet they do not know the proper use of comma and period. Because of these,
the researcher recommended several suggestions to reduce the grammar errors among the
students. One of the recommendations is to conduct school activities such as competition in
the essay-writing, contest in extemporaneous speaking, and many more, in order to enhance
the students’ communicative skills.
In her study, Sulistyani (2017) defines the error in dangling modifier happens when
students fail to add the word that is used to be modified in a sentence, whereas the misplaced
modifier error happens when students put the modifier in inappropriate place, away from the
word it modifies.

Moreover, Catabay (2016) examined the frequency of grammatical errors produced by

30 students of Accountancy. The data were obtained after listening and watching an
animation video clip. The study revealed the dominant errors belong in the sentence structure
category wherein faulty parallelism, misplaced and dangling modifiers were the mostly
occurred in the respondents’ written sentences. Thus, a remedial or enrichment classes for the
students to improve in their English skill was vehemently recommended.
The researcher believed that each and every literature and studies stated above is
similar to the present study. This research has gained its distinct importance because many of
the previous studies have shed light on the area of errors related to English grammar,
particularly to the subject-verb agreement, verb tenses, prepositions, punctuations, spelling,
sentence structure such as misplaced modifier, dangling modifier, as well as the parallelism, in
general.
2.3 Research Paradigm

Grammar, according to Alfiyani (2013), is the most significant features in writing. To her, one
should master the language, in this case, English, in order to become competent in writing.
Grammar has set of rules to change the meaning of word/s (morphology), to arrange the
structure of a sentence (syntax), as well as to be familiar with the different usage of parts of
speech (noun, verb, etc.), and many more. With the use of correct grammar, students will
produce creative and innovative writing.
This study focused on identifying and analyzing grammatical errors of the students,
and determining the effectivity of a developed intervention material that aimed to progress the
grammar skills of Grade 11 HUMSS students. The research paradigm of this study described
as follows. The results of the Initial-writing and Final-writing Assessments are shown on
chapter four (4) in table forms, whereas, the actual sample of the participants’ scripts are
appended in Appendix D.
INITIAL-WRITING INTERVENTION FINAL-WRITING

ASSESSMENT (TREATMENT) ASSESSMENT
Written Dominant errors Written

compositions by were discussed. compositions by
the participants. the participants.
Provided drills with
Applied Error the use of self-made Applied Error
Analysis procedure intervention Analysis
material. procedure
OUR LADY OF FATIMA UNIVERSITY
Dependent GRADUATE SCHOOL
Variable Provided in three Dependent
sessions. Variable
The box on the left showed that the participants have written something about a topic
contained 120 words within the allotted time of 40 minutes. The written compositions were
collected, categorized, and analyzed according to Corder’s Error Analysis (EA) procedure, and
categories of errors were based from Darus and Ching (2009), as well as the taxonomy of
errors called, Surface Strategy Taxonomy (SST) which was theorized by Dulay, et al.
The box in the middle is the intervention/treatment given to the participants after the
most errors were identified. The researcher provided a 3-session of lessons, including drills,
and the lesson focused on the dominant errors found in the students’ compositions.
Meanwhile, the box on the right showed another writing assessment with a different
topic, “How I Met My Best Friend”, after the intervention was received and learned by the
participants. Similar procedure of the Error Analysis was applied.
2.4 Problem Statement and Hypothesis

This study intended to identify the common errors committed by the Grade 11 students of
HUMSS, a basis to develop strategic intervention material (SIM). Specifically, it aimed to
answer the following questions:
1. What is the result of the initial-writing assessment?
2. What are the common grammatical errors committed?
3. What are the grammatical errors committed according to taxonomy of errors:
3.1. Omission,
3.2. Addition,
3.3. Misformation, and
3.4. Misordering?
4. What is the result of the final-writing assessment?
5. Is there a significant difference between the results of initial and final writing
assessment?
6. How may the findings of the study be utilized in the development of Strategic
Intervention Material (SIM)?
Hypothesis: There is no significant difference between the results of the initial-writing and final-
writing assessments.

2.0 Methodology
In this chapter, the researcher discussed the methodology used in conducting the research.
The study comprised of the research design, the research setting, the participants, the research
instruments used, the techniques used in gathering data, and how data were analyzed.
3.1 Research Design

Mwaka (2016), cited Locke et al. (1987), who stated that research design provides
direction, and arranges a systematic research. This design organizes several factors: the
research topic, the needed data, the feasibility of the study, the reliability of information,
including the ethics. Research design, as Locke et al. (1987), defines it as, “the overall plan
for collecting and analyzing data including specifications for the enhancing the external and
internal validity of the study.”
This study used a one-group quasi experimental design, as it followed a three-phases
of process: the initial-writing assessment, then the series of lessons as intervention, and lastly,
the final-writing assessment of the participants. The research design was a descriptive-
comparative because it both compared and described the errors made by the students. The
researcher described the most commone type of errors in English writing namely, the subject-
verb agreement, verb tense, preposition, spelling, capitalization, punctuation, misplaced
modifier, dangling modifier, and parallelism. This study was conducted to the Grade-11
Humanities and Social Sciences (HUMSS) students of a public school, wherein, the initial-
writing assessment, intervention, and final-writing assessment methods were used. The
initial-writing assessment and final-writing assessment were designed to compare the results
of each process, and to determine if the intervention used has created a positive effect of
learning to the participants.
The initial-writing assessment was administered by instructing the participants to
write a speech in order to identify their difficulties in grammar. Then, the participants
received a 3-session of lessons, (50 minutes each session) based from the extracted previous
written assessment results, wherein, correcting the most errors in grammar and explaining the
grammar rules were discussed to the participants during the intervention. Then, another
writing task was given to the participants after the intervention was briefly studied. The Error
Analysis procedure was applied to both initial and final-writing assessments.

3.2 Research Locale

The students of Grade 11 Humanities and Social Sciences (HUMSS) strand were the
participants, representing the whole population (n=250) of this study. These participants were
students from one of the public schools in Quezon City for school year 2018-2019.
The selected school is one of the most populated public high schools in Quezon City
that offers senior high school curriculum. Furthermore, it is in this school where the
researcher is presently teaching English-related subject, and is one of the official faculty
members of HUMSS strand where she handles six (6) class-sections of Grade 11.
Thus, it is the hope of the researcher that this study can provide a profound feedback
and effective instructional material based on the grammatical errors committed by the
students.
3.3 Population and Sampling

The participants of this study represented the whole population (n=250) of Grade 11
HUMSS strand from a public school consisting of 250 officially enrolled students for the
school year 2018-2019.
The researcher selected HUMSS students because of the following reasons: 1) The
researcher was the subject-teacher of these students, and 2) she has the direct access to collect
primary source of data needed in the study of which were the common errors taken from their
written essays.
However, after the collection and process of data were done, the total number of
participants in the study was reduced to 176. The reasons for this reduction are the following:
(1) participants who were absent or came late in the class (15 minutes and beyond) in the
initial-writing assessment or in the final-writing assessment, or in both (initial and final)
writing assessments were excluded in the study. (2) participants who have written their
compositions in more or less than 120 words in the initial-writing assessment or in the final-
writing assessment, were also excluded in the study. (3) participants whose written
compositions did not contain any error or “error-free” were excluded in the study. (4) lastly,
pariticipants who have written their compositions beyond the given allocated time (40
minutes) were also exluded in the study.

3.4 Ethical Considerations

There were several ethical considerations pointed out in this study. First, the
researcher submitted a Letter to Conduct Study to the Schools Division Office of Quezon City
to seek approval. Another ethical consideration was the approval from the parents of the
participants. They were asked to sign the Informed Consent Form (ICF). One of the important
parts in the ICF mentioned was the assurance of confidentiality and anonymity of their
children’s identity as participants in the research. Thus, trust and confidence between the
researcher and the parents of the participants were upheld.
In the same manner, an Informed Assent Form (IAF) was given to the target students
to seek agreement. Again, confidentiality and anonymity of the participant’s identity were
expressed appropriately. These forms were approved, and the researcher, herself, started the
administration of collecting data. With strict compliance to the guidelines on research, this
study was carefully reviewed and approved by Institutional Ethics Review Committee (IERC).
3.5 Research Instruments

The essential instrument in the collection of data used in finding common errors were
the participants’ written-compositions. These were considerably the primary data from the
primary sources.
One of the learning competencies in the curriculum guide of a Reading and Writing
Skills subject is the writing competency; therefore, in this study, the researcher instructed the
students to write an essay about a personal experience with a title of, “My Journey as HUMSS
Student” in limited time of 40 minutes. Furthermore, they were instructed to write in 120
words only, and the use of dictionary or other gadgets were not allowed while writing. In this
manner, the task determined how well they can express and describe their ideas and thoughts
through writing in the English language.
For validation purposes, the researcher’s intervention material was checked and scrutinized by
five (5) experts in the field of English language. The first expert has a doctorate degree, and
has been teaching English-related subjects for three decades. He is currently the Head Teacher
of English department for secondary education at a public school. Another expert in the field
is a Master Teacher teaching English subjects and was assigned as the Coordinator to a certain
strand in senior high school. The third expert is a highly-skilled English teacher, and at the
same time, the Documentation Chairman for senior high school. The fourth English language
expert has a doctorate degree and a professor of English-related courses to a certain university.
Lastly, the English language expert who also checked the instrument for intervention is a

seasoned professor, and has been teaching English language for almost two decades in a
university. All of these experts scrutinized the material, the appropriate user’s level, and the
grammar content of the self-made tool as an intervention/treatment.
3.6 Data Collection
A Letter to Conduct Study to the Schools Division Office of Quezon City was
submitted and was approved. The researcher, herself, conducted the study. Fortunately, one
of the activities in the Curriculum Guide of the subject was the writing task. Thus, the
researcher’s study did not create by any chance a disturbance to the whole learning class.
Instead, it was a very timely undertaking by the participants in the teaching-learning process.
In this study, they were instructed to write two (2) compositions in two different writing
phases; the researcher call these as, “Initial-writing Assessment” and “Final-writing
Assessment”.
The Initial-writing Assessment. The initial-writing assessment aimed to measure the
participants’ preliminary knowledge in the English grammar. The initial-writing assessment
was an essay compositions of the participants which served as primary sources of data needed
in identifying the common errors. They were instructed to write personal topic with a title of,
“My Journey as HUMSS Student” within the allotted time of 40 minutes, and must contain a
word-count of 120 words. The written-compositions contained more or less than 120 words
were excluded/rejected. This was done in order to get an accurate results of the data.
Furthermore, participants who were not able to attend the class or being absent during
the time of the activity were also excluded from the collection of data. However, their late-
submission of writing tasks, as well as those papers that exceeded or less than the allowed
number of words were still be given a grade for the regular classroom writing activity, but
were not included in the data collection for research. Excluded papers in the research can
cause difficulties in getting accurate results on the frequency and ranking. Moreover, those
papers that were able to meet the number of words (120 words) were included in the research,
and were graded as a regular classroom-writing activity as well.
When the initial-writing was done, the researcher ascribed to the linguist, Pit Corder’s
Error Analysis process. Error Analysis (EA) was summarized by Barkhiuzen’s (2005) work
as cited in Alfiyani (2013), wherein, he describes the EA procedures. In this research, the first
step in Error Analysis was the Collection of data of learners’ written speech, followed by the
step of Identifying errors by the use of symbols of correcting code. The next step was the
classification of errors, where errors were classified from linguistics taxonomy of errors.

Another step was the Explanation of errors, and the final step was Error evaluation, wherein,
the interpretation of tables, graphs and conclusions were involved.
In classifying the taxonomy of errors, however, the researcher applied the linguistic
taxonomy called ‘Surface Strategy Taxonomy’ (SST) by Dulay, Burt, & Krashen (1982).
According to James (1998) as cited by Suhono (2016), learners’ errors in grammar may vary,
and SST can highlight such alterations made by these learners.
The entity of SST consists of four categories of errors, namely, the omission, addition,
misformation and misordering. For instance, students may omit essential letter/s or word/s, or
add unnecessary one, they may misform the word or group of words, or disorder them. This
taxonomy is used to organize and describe data. This study, therefore, employed the above-
mentioned steps.
The Intervention/Treatment. After the grammatical errors were identified, classified,
analyzed, and interpreted, the researcher held a three-session lessons on basic grammar review
as an intervention/treatment for the errors committed by the participants. The first session
discussed was errors committed in the mechanics: use of punctuations, correct use of
capitalization, and spelling. The next was the discussion on errors committed grammatically:
rules in subject-verb agreement, verb tenses and preposition were given in the form of drills.
Lastly, the discussion about errors in syntactic were discussed, namely: misplaced modifiers,
dangling modifiers and the correct use of parallelism.
The Final-writing Assessment. The third stage was the final-writing assessment. It
somehow measured the effectivity of the given intervention/treatment. In this stage, the same
participants were instructed to write a personal topic with a title of “How I Met My Best
Friend”. Similar instructions were advised to the participants such as the given limited time
of 40 minutes of writing in not more or less than 120 words, as well as the procedure in
analyzing the errors using Corder’s Error Analysis, and SST of Dulay et al. Finally, the
results of the findings provided evidences as to how the researcher imparted her conclusions
and recommendations.
3.7 Data Analysis

The data needed to answer the problems of grammatical errors according to subject-verb
agreement, verb tenses, preposition rules, punctuations, spelling, sentence structure, as well as
according to SST were from the written compositions of Grade 11 HUMSS students. A
proper tabulation, graphs and analysis were made to both initial-writing and final-writing
assessments. The statistical instruments used to analyze the data were as follows:

To answer question number 1, the mean was used to determine the result of the initial-
writing assessment.
To answer question number 2, the frequency distribution and ranking were applied to
identify the most prevalent errors of the participants.
To answer questions number 3, the frequency distribution and ranking were applied to
determine errors committed according to the category of errors.
To answer number 4, the mean was used to determine the result of the final-writing
assessment.
To answer question number 5, the T-test pair observation was used to determine if
there was a significant difference between the results of initial and final-writing assessment.
3.0 Results
This chapter presents the collected data, the results of the statistical analysis, and the
interpretation of findings, tables were used and sequentially shown according to the research
questions.
Table 1 shows the number of students who committed different errors from their
initial-writing compositions. The data reveals that 128 students committed errors in
punctuations, while 15 students committed errors in faulty parallelism. This simply means
that majority of the students have weaknesses in terms of using appropriate punctuation marks.
Emphasized by McLaren (2003), as cited in Salman, et al. (2017), that there is a
significant importance in using punctuations in writing. If these symbols are poorly and
incorrectly been used, there would be a chance that a passage or a text can convey a different
meaning.
The use of full stop (.) and comma (,) were dominantly neglected by the participants in
this study. Example of errors on punctuations (disregard the other errors in this part) taken
from the actual participants’ compositions are the following:
I always keep in mind that I can do all things_
The struggles I made is all my fault_
I always search for being perfect_
As a HUMSS student_ I have also many challenges_
Whereas, the following are the correct use of punctuations.
I always keep in mind that I can do all things(.)
The struggles I made is all my fault(.)
I always search for being perfect(.)

As a HUMSS student(,) I have also many challenges(.)
Table 1
Results of the Initial-Writing Assessment of the Students
Number of Students
Type of Errors Rank
Committed the Errors
Subject-Verb Agreement 59 4
Verb Tenses 48 6
Prepositions 17 8
Spelling 64 3
Capitalization 116 2
Punctuations 128 1
Misplaced Modifiers 29 7
Dangling Modifiers 55 5
Faulty Parallelism 15 9
Table 2 shows the frequency of times each student committed errors in their initial-
writing assessment. Majority of the errors made was on capitalization with 434 recorded
committed by the students. The second common errors committed by the students were the
punctuations with 376 times, and 104 errors in spelling in the third rank. The least common
errors made were on parallelism. This proved that the students were not familiar with the rules
of capitalization, punctuation and spelling.
Similarly almost five years ago, findings were exactly the same – the incorrect use of
capitalization and punctuation were the major errors committed by the students of
Technological University of the Philippines (TUP) as recorded by Alinsunod (2014). She
(Alinsunod, 2014), noted that her findings were consistently the same with research made by
Lozada and Masangya (2009) in which capitalization and punctuations were the majority of
errors committed by their respondents.
The researcher noticed, therefore, that the problem in the proper usage of
capitalization and punctuation were not addressed for almost a decade in the history of the
Philippines, despite several researches have been made on the same issue.

Below are the examples of errors (disregard the other errors in this part) taken from
the actual participant’s composition:
i am thankful to God that i am having....
i love English subject.
The strand humss helping me to know the things that i never knew.
And my Journey is happy even though it is hard.
Whereas, the correct use of capitalization are the following:
I am thankful to God that I am having....
I love English subject.
The strand HUMSS helping me to know the things that I never knew.
And my journey is happy even though it is hard.
The term, **Multiple Response (under each table) means that each participant has
committed the same type of error several times either in his/her initial-writing or final-writing
assessment. (e.g., student D-4 wrote the pronoun “I” in lower case ( i ) four times in his
initial-writing composition. Therefore, four (4) errors in capitalization occurred.)
Table 2
Common Errors Committed by the Respondents in the Initial-Writing Assessment
Frequency of Committing the
Type of Errors Rank
Errors
Verb Tenses 76 5.5
Prepositions 22 8
Spelling 104 3
Capitalization 434 1
Punctuations 376 2
Dangling Modifiers 76 5.5
** Multiple Responses
n=176

Table 3.1 shows the different errors related to the Error of Taxonomy in the Omission
Category. The problem in the punctuations ranked the highest number of issues in both initial
and final writing activities of the students. The errors in dangling modifiers ranked second,
and the spelling difficulty ranked third. Among the category of errors, Omission is the second
most number of times of errors made by the students.
The errors of omission, as described by Suhono (2016), occur when an essential word
in a particular sentence is omitted, where it should be there in the first place, to complete a
thought or an idea.
Based on the researcher’s observations, students were writing in fast phase because of
the limited time given to them to write. Consequently, rechecking their written works before
submission was neglected. This might have caused the respondents to omit the use of
punctuation mark on their written works.
The punctuation holds a critical role in the writing system. According to Harmer
(2004) as cited in Salman, et al. (2017), punctuations, if not properly used, it can cause a text
difficult to understand. Moreover, Salami (2016) cited Carey’s (1978) study where he stated
that through the use of punctuations, vagueness of an idea in a text is eradicated, thus, clarity
on the relationship of words in a text is established.
Below are the examples of errors in the category of Omission (disregard the other
errors in this part) which were taken from the actual participant’s composition:
For the first time in my SHS life_ I’ve seen myself _ more flaws.
I’m so great_ and happy as a Humanities and Social Science_ student.
Though she is fame_, our bonding in public places can ruin because of some
paparazzis.
Whereas, if an item is added to a word or group of words, clear ideas can be understood.
For the first time in my SHS life, I’ve seen myself (having or getting) more flaws.
I’m so greatful and happy as a Humanities and Social Sciences student.
Though she is famous, our bonding in public places can ruin because of some
paparazzis.
Table 3.1
The Common Errors Committed According to Omission Category
Initial-Writing Final-Writing
Type of Errors Frequency of Rank Frequency of Rank
Committing the Committing the

Errors Errors
Subject-Verb Agreement 2 7 2 4.5
Verb Tenses 6 4 0 6.5
Prepositions 3 6 0 6.5
Spelling 36 3 3 3
Capitalization 4 5 2 4.5
Punctuations 327 1 160 1
Misplaced Modifiers 0 8 0 6.5
Dangling Modifiers 75 2 68 2
Faulty Parallelism 0 8 0 6.5
** Multiple Responses (n=176)
Table 3.2 shows the common errors in terms of the Addition category during the initial-
writing assessment. The top three (3) errors were prepositions, misplaced modifiers, and subject-
verb agreement. While the results on the final-writing assessment, the errors in preposition were
consistently remained as the most common errors committed in the Addition category. This was
followed by verb tenses, misplaced modifiers and dangling modifiers.
The taxonomy error of Addition by James (1998), as cited in Novita (2014), occurs if
an item which should not be present in a well-formed utterance is present. Basic example can
be in the misuse of prepositions. (e.g., My grandpa still lives in there. This is where I live at.)
From the result of the study, preposition has the highest errors, both from the initial-
writing and final-writing tasks on the Error by Addition. The errors still occurred in the final-
writing task despite the lessons were given in the proper use of prepositions. In the lesson, an
open discussion for clarification, and drills were given to the respondents.
Below are the examples of errors in the category of Addition (disregard the other
errors in this part) which were taken from the actual participant’s composition:
In this strand help_ me to performed me to my study.
I keep on seeking those unfamiliar words that I’ve been heard.
We must enjoy our friendship even when it’s having a bad or good times.
Whereas, if the added item is removed, clear ideas will be epxressed.
This strand helped me perform my study.
I keep on seeking those unfamiliar words that I’ve heard.
We must enjoy our friendship even when it’s bad or good times.

Table 3.2
The Common Errors Committed According to Addition Category
Frequency of Frequency of
Type of Errors Committing the Rank Committing the Rank
Errors Errors
Subject-Verb Agreement 4 3 0 6.5
Verb Tenses 3 5 1 3
Prepositions 32 1 21 1
Spelling 4 3 0 6.5
Misplaced Modifiers 5 2 1 3
Dangling Modifiers 1 7 1 3
n=176
Table 3.3 shows that common errors committed in the error of Misformation.
Articulated by James (1998), as cited by Suhono (2016), that the error of Misformation is
defined as the incorrect use of form of certain structure or a morpheme (e.g., Mary putted on
her make up., She totally unagree with the idea.)
In this study, however, capitalization has the largest frequency of errors 437, in terms
of the Misformation category in the initial-writing task of the participants. Though the errors
in capitalization decreased to almost 40 percent in the final-writing assessment, yet it remained
first in the rank as the most number of errors committed by participants. Then, it was followed
by the errors in the subject-verb agreement that ranked second, and the incorrect spelling
ranked third during the initial-writing task.

From the findings on the final-writing assessment, the researcher, however, noticed
that despite the remedial lessons were given to the students, there was still an increased
number of errors of frequency that was attributed to the verb tenses ― 246. Apparently, the
errors could be related to the topic given to the participants. The title of the topic was, How I
Met My Best Friend. Obviously, sentence constructions require the use of verbs in the past
tense of which may have been neglected in this part.
Below are the examples of errors in the category of Misformation, (disregard
the other errors in this part) which were taken from the actual participant’s composition:
...when I was in my 9th grade, I’m not too shy to ask them.
I met these people when we are in elementary.
I was shook when she called me to be part of their group.
Whereas, if the errors in Misformation category shall be corrected, clear ideas shall be
expressed.
...when I was in my 9th grade, I was not too shy to ask them.
I met these people when we were in elementary.
I was shocked when she called me to be part of their group.
Table 3.3
The Common Errors Committed According to Misformation Category
Errors Errors
Subject-Verb Agreement 94 2 56 3
Verb Tenses 63 4 246 2
Prepositions 7 6 38 5
Spelling 79 3 54 4
Capitalization 437 1 276 1
Dangling Modifiers 0 7 0 8.5

n=176
Table 3.4 shows of the common errors according to Misordering category. Defined by
James (1998), as cited in Novita (2014), errors in Misordering category are the incorrect
positioning or placement of a morpheme/s in a structure (e.g., What he is doing here?, I safely
arrived home.)
Table 3.4 manifests errors in the misplaced modifiers. Though the errors were small
in number, yet, the misplaced modifiers remained first in the rank to both initial-writing (38),
and final-writing (21) tasks. It was noted that the number of frequency of errors decreased by
almost half percent after intervention was employed to the participants. No significant errors
were committed by the students in this category, except for the misplaced modifiers.
Below are some examples of errors in the category of Misordering, which were taken
from the actual participants’ compositions (disregard the other errors in this part):
Always bear in mind that we first have to experience hardship for us to rise to the top.
Finishing the 10th grade, this is the best start, for being a senior high school student.
Whereas, if the errors in Misordering category shall be corrected, clear ideas shall be
expressed.
Always bear in mind that we have to experience hardship first, for us to rise to the top.
This is the best start as a senior high school student after finishing grade 10.
Table 3.4
The Common Errors Committed According to Misordering Category
Errors Errors
Subject-Verb Agreement 0 4 5 2
Verb Tenses 0 4 1 3
Prepositions 0 4 0 6.5
Spelling 0 4 0 6.5

Punctuations 0 4 0 6.5
Dangling Modifiers 1 3 0 6.5
n=176
Table 3.5 shows the summary of Surface Strategy of Taxonomy according to all four (4)
categories. The Misformation category obtained the highest number of frequency of errors in
both (initial and final) writing tasks; there were 712 errors found in the initial-writing, while
689 errors in the final-writing task. Second in rank was the Omission category which obtained
453 errors in the initial-writing, and 235 in the final-writing task. Third was the Addition
category that obtained 53 errors in the initial-writing. and 24 errors in the final-writing task.
Fouth in the rank was the Misordering category, which obtained 50 errors in the initial-
writing, and 27 errors in the final-writing task.
Table 3.5
Summary of Surface Strategy of Taxonomy According to All Four Categories
Surface Strategy
Committing the Rank Committing the Rank
of Taxonomy
Errors Errors
Omission 453 2 23 2
Addition 53 3 24 4
Misformation 712 1 689 1
Misordering 50 4 27 3
Table 4 shows the result of the writing assessment after the series of intervention was
implemented. As revealed from the data, there was a significant change in the number of

errors that the students have made, in comparison from Table 1 data. The incorrect use of
capitalization was on the third spot from the list, with 76 number of observations. The verb
tenses, however, obtained the highest recorded errors in this activity with 105 cases from the
previous record of 46 cases. This may have been caused by the type of topic given to the
students which requires them to write about something in the past. The title was, How I Met
My Friend. They may have forgotten the rules of verb tenses that were discussed prior to the
final-writing assessment. This incident was also similar to the errors in prepositions. The
issue of the students regarding faulty parallelism was now resolved with zero (0) number of
occurrence.
This simply proved that the series of intervention was really a success in addressing
the issue. Also, the intervention was able to lower down the number of cases of errors for
categories, such as subject-verb agreement, spelling, misplaced modifiers, and dangling
modifiers.
A similar issue was reflected in the study of Barkat (2016). The researcher concluded
that the students’ grammatical errors were caused by lack of giving
feedback/treatment/intervention. In his study, 12 students were given a pretest, an 8-sessions
of corrective intervention/treatment, and finally, a posttest. Consequently, according to the
findings, the writing abilities of the students were improved, and the errors were significantly
reduced. It implies that the corrective treatment to the students led them to a better writing
skills.
Table 4
Results of the Final-Writing Assessment of the Students
Number of Students Committed the
Type of Errors Rank
Errors
Verb Tense 105 1
Prepositions 38 5
Spelling 26 7
Capitalization 76 3
Punctuation 86 2
Dangling Modifiers 48 4

From the data of Table 5, below, the result of identification of errors committed by the
students revealed that a significant difference existed in the categories of subject-verb
agreement, verb tenses, prepositions, spelling, capitalization, punctuations, and parallelism,
before and after the intervention was implemented to the students since the value of their test
statistics are all higher than the CRV which was 1.974.
This simply means that the implemented intervention was able to address the issues
regarding this matter. However, only the categories of misplaced modifiers and dangling
modifiers showed insignificant difference because the t-test values of 1.327 and 0.273 were all
lower than the indicated CRV. This means that for such errors, the intervention applied to the
participants did not, in any way, improve the errors committed by the Grade 11 HUMSS
students.
All of these variables were tested using 0.05 level of significance.
Table 5
Results of the Comparison of the Final-Writing and Final-Writing Assessments of the Students
Varianc T-test
Type of Errors Mean CRV Decision Interpretation
e Value
Subject-Verb Pretest 0.517 0.777 ± Significant
2.326 Reject Ho
Agreement Posttest 0.335 0.692 1.97 Difference
Pretest 0.432 0.738 4 Significant
Verb Tense -6.624 Reject Ho
Posttest 1.42 3.216 Difference
Pretest 0.125 0.179 Significant
Prepositions -3.236 Reject Ho
Spelling 4.966 Reject Ho
2.246
Pretest 8.399 Significant
Capitalization 6 2.959 Reject Ho
Difference
Posttest 1.659 9.7
Punctuation 6.244 Reject Ho
Misplaced Pretest 0.205 0.255 1.327 Accept Ho Insignificant
Posttest 0.142 0.168

Mod. Difference
Dangling Pretest 0.432 0.578 Insignificant
0.273 Accept Ho
Mod. Posttest 0.409 0.735 Difference
Faulty Significant
Pretest 0.097 0.111 3.852 Reject Ho
Parallelism Difference
Errors in grammar are significant features in learning the country’s second language,
English. The existence of errors in grammar or in a text has the ability to guide teachers in
deciding the pedagogical approach for students. The Error Analysis of Corder (1981), as cited
in Rahimi and Rahimy (2016), describes that using errors as a tool can improve students’
grammar skills. Teachers need to identify the parts in grammar where students frequently
commit the errors that require more attention. In a similar approach, the researcher of this
study, utilized the most dominant errors committed by the students as the starting point on the
series of her lesson during the intervention/treatment.
Therefore, the findings of this study can be used as reference to determine in
constructing a Strategic Intervention Material (SIM).
5.0 Discussions
After the initial-writing assessment by the respondents, data revealed that majority of
the students were not familiar in the proper use of punctuations. There were 128 out from 176
students who committed this type of error. Another large number of errors committed was
ascribed to the incorrect usage of capitalization, wherein 116 students committed this type of
error. Findings revealed that most of the students did not capitalize the 1st person pronoun, as
well as the incorrect usage of acronyms, (e.g. humss), and the initial letter of a sentence
(there’s a lot of stressors in Senior High School). Another findings revealed was the low
number of errors attributed to parallelism. The syntactical rules in parallelism is quite
complex, however, it’s the least error found to be the least error committed by the students
from their written compositions.
The data were taken from a multiple response; it means that each participant has
committed a number of times of errors from his/her composition with a similar type of error.
The frequency of errors made by the students was the improper use of capitalization 434,
punctuation marks 376, and spelling 104. This proved that students were not familiar in using
capitalization, punctuation marks and spelling.
In the Error of Taxonomy in the category of Omission, the error about wrong use of
punctuations obtained the highest number of frequency of errors to both initial and final

writing activities of the students. Next was the dangling modifiers, and followed by the
spelling problem. The error by Omission ranked second with the most number of times of
errors made by the students.
In the category of Addition, prepositions, misplaced modifiers and subject-verb
agreement respectively, obtained the most number of frequency of errors generated by the
students in the written compositions to both initial-writing and final-writing tasks.
The errors in capitalization has the highest number of frequency of errors found in the
students’ compositions. The count of errors was 437 in the initial-writing task, and it
decreased to 276 errors in the final-writing task. Though the errors in capitalization decreased
to almost 40 percent in the final-writing assessment, it remained number one (1) in rank as the
most number of errors committed by participants. Other errors were subject-verb agreement
and spelling, which were second and third in ranks, respectively.
The taxonomy error of Misformation obtained the highest number of frequency of
errors found, and it was placed first in rank among all the four categories of taxonomy.
The Misordering category attributed the errors to the misplaced modifiers. This type
of error – misplaced modifier, remained first in rank to both initial-writing and final-writing
tasks. It was noted that the number of frequency of errors has decreased by almost half
percent after the intervention was employed to the students. No significant errors were
committed by the students in this category, except for the misplaced modifiers.
After a series of lessons that served as the intervention /treatment, the students were
asked to write another topic as their final-writing assessment. Major findings were found from
collected data. There was a significant change in the number of errors of punctuations and
capitalizations. However, errors in the verb tenses increased, as it obtained the highest number
of students who committed the errors from 48 to 105.
A similar issue was also attributed to the incorrect use of prepositions. The issue of
the students regarding faulty parallelism was now resolved with zero (0) number of
occurrence. This simply proved that the series of intervention was really a success in
addressing the issue. Also, the intervention was able to lower down the number of cases of
errors for categories such as subject-verb agreement, spelling, misplaced modifiers, and
dangling modifiers.
The results in identifying the committed errors by the students created a significant
difference in the type of errors, such as subject-verb agreement, verb tenses, prepositions,
spelling, capitalization, punctuations, and parallelism, before and after the intervention was

applied to the students. It simply means that the implemented intervention was successful in
addressing the issue of errors in grammar.
However, misplaced modifiers and dangling modifiers did not show any significant
difference. In other words, the use of intervention did not truly improve the grammar errors of
the students.
The existence of errors in grammar or in a text has the ability to guide teachers in
deciding the pedagogical approach for students. The researcher of this study utilized the most
dominant errors made by the students as the starting point on the series of her lessons during
the intervention, and found a significant improvement on the grammar skills of the students.
Remarkably, the number of errors made was mostly reduced up to 50 percent for each
category. Therefore, the findings from this research can be strongly used as reference to
determine in constructing a Strategic Intervention Material (SIM).
6.0 Conclusions
The following conclusions were drawn, according to the findings of this study:
Majority of the students are not aware on the proper use of punctuations,
capitalization, and spelling all throughout in their written essays. Moreover, few students are
having difficulty in using parallelism to express ideas. This simply means that majority of the
students have weaknesses in terms of using the appropriate punctuation marks, capitalization,
and spelling.
In the Surface Strategy of Taxonomy, the Misformation category garnered the highest
number of errors, 712 in the initial-writing assessment, while 689 errors were found in the
final-writing assessment.
Then it was followed by the Omission category which obtained 453 errors in the
initial-writing assessment, and 235 errors in the final-writing assessment. Next was the
Addition category that obtained 53 errors in the initial-writing assessment, and 24 errors in the
final-writing assessment. Lastly, the Misordering category obtained 50 errors in the initial-
writing assessment, and 27 errors in the final-writing assessment.
There was a significant change in the number of errors that the students made. Verb
tenses, however, obtained the highest recorded errors in the final-writing assessment with 105
cases from the previous record of 46 cases.
Furthermore, the errors in punctuation obtained 86 which was lower than the previous
128 cases. The incorrect use of capitalization followed with 76 number of observations
against the previous 116 cases.

The errors in dangling modifier have decreased to 48 from the previous 55 cases. The
issue of the students regarding faulty parallelism was now resolved with zero (0) number of
occurrence. It simply proved that the series of intervention was really a success in addressing
the issue. In general, the reduced number of errors occurred in the students’ composition was
simply due to the implemented intervention.
Finding the dominant errors was the starting point in order to provide a series of
lessons to the students. The researcher found a significant improvement on the grammar skills
of the students after the intervention. The number of errors committed has decreased down to
50 percent for each category. Therefore, the findings from this study can be effectively used
to determine in constructing a Strategic Intervention Material (SIM).
7.0 Recommendations
This part of the chapter provides recommendations that may reveal more insights taken from
the conclusions.
For the English teachers, they need to provide a series of lessons to improve the
students’ grammatical skills such as the proper use of capitalization, punctuations, spelling,
subject-verb agreement, verb tense, preposition, as well as the correct use of misplaced and
dangling modifiers. They should provide more number of sessions of intervention/treatment;
allowing the students to do more drills and activities, instead of the 3-sessions where lessons
were terse and brief. Turn the incidental learning to intentional learning by giving interactive
lessons and drills focusing on the various mechanical and grammar rules. The creation of
Strategic Intervention Material will help the teachers to enrich the students’ understanding in
grammar, to progress in their studies, and to gain mastery in the language.
For the students, they should be encouraged to respond always in English in a
complete sentence when inside the school campus. Speaking in the English language builds
one’s confidence. It exercises one’s speaking prowess, as well as it increases one’s
vocabulary.
For the school administration, they can support and foster an English club or group so
that students’ communication skills will be improved through activities, such as essay or short
story writing contest, extemporaneous speech, or a debate.
For the future researchers, they are encouraged to conduct the same study in a larger
scope to both public and private schools where students may have different levels of
knowledge when it comes to English grammar. Also, they are encouraged to further
investigate the grammar errors in an expanded scope of study by identifying the causes of

errors, and classifying the errors, such as the part of speech, the mechanical errors, and the
syntactic type of errors.

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Appendix A
Definition of Terms
The following are the operational definition of terms to be used in this study.
Error of Addition is the presence of an item that should not appear in a sentence.
Error Analysis is a branch of applied linguistics that studies and analyzes errors made
by L2 learners.
Error of Misformation is the use of the wrong form of the morpheme or structure in
a sentence.
Error of Misordering is the incorrect placement of a morpheme or a group of
morphemes in a sentence.
Error of Omission is the absence of an item that should appear in a sentence.
HUMSS an acronym that stands for ‘Humanities and Social Sciences’; a strand in the
academic tracks of senior high school curriculum under K to 12 enhanced basic education of
the Philippines.
L1 learner is a learner who speaks his/her mother tongue or native language.
L2 learner is a learner who speaks foreign or second language, other than his/her
mother tongue or native language; sometimes it is interchangeable.
SVA is an acronym to the term “Subject-Verb Agreement”. The researcher uses
“SVA” especially in the results and discussion part of the study.
Syntactic is a classification that consists of misplaced and dangling modifiers, and
parallelism rules.

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COMMON ERRORS COMMITTED BY GRADE 11… 1

OUR LADY OF FATIMA UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL

OUR LADY OF FATIMA UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL

OUR LADY OF FATIMA UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL

2.2 Literature Review

2.2.1 Importance of writing

OUR LADY OF FATIMA UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL

2.2.2 Concept of Grammar

OUR LADY OF FATIMA UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL

2.2.3 The Error Analysis

OUR LADY OF FATIMA UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL

OUR LADY OF FATIMA UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL

2.2.4 Concept of Errors

OUR LADY OF FATIMA UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL

2.2.5 Error and Mistake

2.2.6 Common Errors

OUR LADY OF FATIMA UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL

OUR LADY OF FATIMA UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL

OUR LADY OF FATIMA UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL

OUR LADY OF FATIMA UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL

Moreover, Catabay (2016) examined the frequency of grammatical errors produced by

2.3 Research Paradigm

INITIAL-WRITING INTERVENTION FINAL-WRITING

Written Dominant errors Written

2.4 Problem Statement and Hypothesis

OUR LADY OF FATIMA UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL

3.1 Research Design

OUR LADY OF FATIMA UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL

3.2 Research Locale

3.3 Population and Sampling

OUR LADY OF FATIMA UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL

3.4 Ethical Considerations

3.5 Research Instruments

OUR LADY OF FATIMA UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL

OUR LADY OF FATIMA UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL

3.7 Data Analysis

OUR LADY OF FATIMA UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL

OUR LADY OF FATIMA UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL

As a HUMSS student(,) I have also many challenges(.)

OUR LADY OF FATIMA UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL

OUR LADY OF FATIMA UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL

OUR LADY OF FATIMA UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL

OUR LADY OF FATIMA UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL

OUR LADY OF FATIMA UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL

OUR LADY OF FATIMA UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL

OUR LADY OF FATIMA UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL

OUR LADY OF FATIMA UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL

Verb Tense 105 1

OUR LADY OF FATIMA UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL

OUR LADY OF FATIMA UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL

OUR LADY OF FATIMA UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL

OUR LADY OF FATIMA UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL

OUR LADY OF FATIMA UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL

OUR LADY OF FATIMA UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL

OUR LADY OF FATIMA UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL

Abroguena, B. R. (2016). The Effect of SMS (Short Message Service) on Language

Alfiyani, L. M. (2013). An Analysis of Grammatical Errors in Writing among the Second

Ashgar, S. (May 14, 2014). Error Analysis. Retrieved from: